program error: code follows on the same line as open brace

[Johnny Tad]

I have data that has variables from the year 1960 to 1970 currently labeled as YR1960, YR1961, etc., but I want to make stata recognize them as dates and rename. So first i used the command: local i = 1960 , then after that I used the command: foreach var of varlist YR1960 YR1961 YR1962 YR1963 YR1964 YR1965 YR1966 YR1967 YR1968 YR1969 YR1970 {rename `var' yr_`i' local i = `i' + 1}
But i get the message "program error: code follows on the same line as open brace". What am i doing wrong?

[Nick Cox]

You should edit your code display to respect whatever line breaks you supplied to Stata because at the moment it is all mushed up.

If you typed

foreach var of varlist YR1960 YR1961 YR1962 YR1963 YR1964 YR1965 YR1966 YR1967 YR1968 YR1969 YR1970 {rename `var' yr_`i' local i = `i' + 1}

then Stata told you what is wrong: code follows on the same line as open brace. This would be legal:

 local i = 1960

foreach var of varlist YR1960 YR1961 YR1962 YR1963 YR1964 YR1965 YR1966 YR1967 YR1968 YR1969 YR1970 {
     rename `var' yr_`i'
     local i = `i' + 1
}

But that's all unnecessary.

rename (YR*) (yr_*)

is shorter code.

Please note Statalist FAQ Advice #6 (full real names please) and #12 (display code using CODE delimiters).

[Johnny Tad]

Thank you so much. The new issue is that I get the "type mismatch" error when i try to destring. Some of my cells have this observation ".." and i want to destring and replace them with nothing (just blank cells), using this command:

foreach var of varlist yr_* {
replace `var' = "" if `var' == ".."
destring `var', replace
}

what am i doing wrong please?